"What burst?" Then, after Constance had explained, "I was busy—but not having fun."
"Somebody who didn't know you might believe that," the girl derided. "This thought was important, I think—much more so than dilly-dallying with Overlords, as you were doing. It was 'way up—on this band here." She illustrated.
"So?" Worsel came as near to whistling as one of his inarticulate race could come. "What were they like? Tell me all that you can."
"VWZY, to four places." Con concentrated. "Multilegged—not exactly carapaceous, but pretty nearly. Spiny, too, I believe. The world was cold, dismal, barren; but not frigid, but he ... it ... didn't seem exactly like an oxygen-breather—more like what a warm-blooded Palainian would perhaps look like, if you can imagine such a thing. Mentality very high—precisionist grade—no thought of cities as such. The sun was a typical yellow dwarf. Does any of this ring a bell in your mind?"
"No." Worsel thought intensely for minutes. So did Constance. Neither had any idea then that the girl was describing the form assumed in their autumn by the dread inhabitants of the planet Ploor!
"This may indeed be important," Worsel broke the mental silence. "Shall we explore together?"
"We shall." They tuned to the desired band. "Give it plenty of shove, too. Go!"
Out and out and out the twinned receptors sped; to encounter finally a tenuous, weak, and utterly cryptic vibration. One touch—the merest possible contact—and it disappeared. It vanished before even Con's electronics-fast reactions could get more than a hint of directional alignment; and neither of the observers could read any part of it.
Both of these developments were starkly incredible, and Worsel's long body tightened convulsively, rock-hard, in the violence of the mental force now driving his exploring mind. Finding nothing, he finally relaxed.